Saturday, October 11, 2008

Snickerdoodles

Snickerdoodles were one first cookies I remember making on my own as a child. I have an old recipe in a little box, but it uses shortening and butter. I wanted to find an all butter snickerdoodle (and, heck, I wanted to make snickerdoodles again!) They are also one of my favorite cookies!

I made the batter a week ago, rolled out small balls of dough and froze 'em until baked for a good-bye party at the library. I threw the super cold balls of dough into a Ziplock bag with the cinnamon/sugar mixture for a fast way to coat them!

Martha Stewart's Cookies book is a great collection of recipes. Each one has a gorgeous photo and the recipes are divided into section such as: light & delicate, cakey & tender, rich & dense, and crumbly & sandy. Also, brownies are included. Martha's Snickerdoodles fall under soft & chewy.

Martha has a different recipe on her website (it uses shortening). Here are the ingredients from the book (I don't type up the recipes on my blog because of copyright restrictions and I can't type that much because of my wrists...but the listing of ingredients aren't copyrighted. You can then use her copyrighted "baking instructions" to make the snickerdoodles - however, bake at 350 degrees!).

These got good reviews from the library staff...and everyone seems to remember them from their youth and grandma's cookies (although my Japanese grandma was making orange mochi or frying up some Okinawan dango instead of snickerdoodles). The outside is a bit crisp but the center is soft and chewy. It's a nice combination of all things good and great memories!

steph, I didn't flatten them, they spread out on their own. I have seen others that are a bit cakey, but mine seem to spread out. They were pretty cold when they went into the oven too (they were previously frozen and then I coated them with cinnamon/sugar).

My family LOVES snickerdoodles. I have a recipe that calls for cream of tartar, shortening and butter. I just made a batch using Splenda [now have diabetics in the family] and they came out VERY dry and crumbly and did not flatten. Have you heard from anyone else that had these results?

JerseyGranny, (Love your name!) - I don't use artificial sugars in my baking so I don't know how they create a different produce. I'm sorry I don't have better news for you. Perhaps you can find a sugar cookie recipe on a diabetic cookbook and just roll them in cinnamon sugar for something like a snickerdoodle. Good luck finding the perfect Splenda recipe!!